E-books are the new generation books that may surpass old paperback books in the future. With the prevailing influence of digital information, and the concerted effort to preserve our trees, e-books are becoming more and more important as the years go by. Therefore, e-book readers have come in handy to make reading e-books much more easier for us. E-book readers try to imitate reading a paperback book, but without the use of actual paper. E-book readers have the ability to display e-books, which means that you will download or buy e-books from countless websites on the internet, and put them in your e-book reader device. Once upon a time, we were limited to reading or viewing e-books from our desktop or laptop computers, but with the e-book reader, we can read these e-books like you would a normal book, such that you can read it anywhere.
In this article, we will discuss one such e-book reader, and that is the Astak 5″ EZ Reader.
FEATURES
The Astak 5″ EZ Reader is an e-book reader much like any other in terms of physical appearance. It has a screen, several buttons, and like most e-book readers, it also comes with a leather binding case for protection. The entire thing is made up of a rubber material that is soft and feels very nice. It also contains slots for memory extension and plugs for listening to music. But the main purpose of this device is to allow users to read e-books as if they were reading a book. That is primarilyachieved with the use of e-Ink technology on the screen.
E-ink Technology
So what is the e-Ink technology? It is a technology implemented in the e-book reader screen which allows its display to look like real paper. This means that the screen doesn’t glare, so that you can read on it even under direct sunlight or other light sources, and the screen surface will not reflect the light back to your eyes and cover your view of the text on the e-book page. The contrast between words and text is also very high, and this technology also makes the device very energy efficient, because it only uses energy when turning to another page or using the menu features.
From the outside
The 5″ in Astak e-readers name refers to the diagonal of the screen. Most e-readers’ screens are 6 inches or longer, and this one is a bit small, because it is supposed to be a pocket edition. The display is pretty nice, it has 600×800 pixels, or picture elements, and 8 levels of gray-scale which makes the display really slick. One of the best things about the display in this reader is its quick response time and screen refresh rate. It’s a bit different with the e-Ink technology, such that going to the next or previous page is not spontaneous unlike reading PDF files on a computer, for example. But the Astak 5″ EZ Reader does a pretty good job of making the refresh rate really quick and convenient, thanks to its powerful processor. Switching from one page to another is done using next or previous page buttons found at the left side of the device, and another left/right button pair can be found at the lower right part of the device, just below the screen. Other buttons include number buttons one to ten below the screen, and below that are multipurpose key buttons including the menu button.
On-screen Features
The menu button allows you to bring up a menu in the screen, overlapping the lower left portion of the page of an e-book. The menu has some features such as the xpdf feature, which is a very cool feature which can’t be found in just any e-book reader in the market today. The xpdf feature is actually a text-to-speech feature, which allows you to listen to a mechanical reader read the book for you, in cases where you can’t read the book yourself. Aside from this menu feature, another feature allows you to change the font size of the text fonts of your e-book. Depending on the e-book file format, the Astak 5″ EZ reader can allow up to 5 font size selections, namely extra-small, small, medium, large and extra-large. For some e-book formats, only 3 of these 5 font selections can actually be used. Aside from font size, you can even change the font. By default the font of this e-book reader is ttf, but you can change that to 8 other kinds of text fonts, and you can even download free fonts online that you can use in this e-book reader.
Speaking of formats, the Astak 5″ EZ Reader is unique in such a way that it allows a huge number of formats in its system. It can support formats such as PDF, EPUB, DOC, TXT, HTML, and music files such as MP3 and also picture files or image support files such as JPEG. Mp3 can be supported and it implies that while you are reading, you can plug in a headset or an external speaker so that you can listen to music while reading. You can even play audio books.
DRAWBACKS
There are several drawbacks for this device, however. First is, despite the fact that it can handle a lot of formats, not all formats can perform as well as the others. PDF files are displayed very well in this device, because this device allows text reflow and zooming in and out. Text reflow means the PDF text will automatically fit the screen even if you change orientations from portrait to landscape, which you can do as a menu option. But the TXT format is not so lucky; lines can appear choppy and hard to read.
The text-to-speech function of this device, as with any other device that has this function, is not so appealing. It’s just hard to appreciate something that reads to you mechanically; apparently, the developers still find it hard to instill a machine which can read ‘with feelings’.
Another drawback is that mp3 playing is inferior to devices which are intended to play music, such as the iPod. Well, this device is intended for reading, but the control scheme is just not user-friendly for this device. Yet another drawback, is the lack of wireless connectivity, because you have to use a USB cable and a computer containing the books you want to read in order to transfer them to your device. The Kindle, another e-book reader, is a prime example of the charms of being able to download e-books anywhere you are. It makes reading and acquiring books so much easier.
CONCLUSION
Overall, this small e-book reader performs very well. It has fantastic display, the kind of display which is at par with perhaps the best display among readers today, the Sony PRS-505, in terms of readability and viewability. The e-Ink technology looks really nice and is well implemented in this e-book reader. The 5-inch display apparently seems to be alright, despite the fact that you’d have to live with fitting only a few words or lines per page. In addition, this device is pretty cheap compared to other e-book readers. It is definitely worth the money, and book lovers will definitely rejuvenate their love for reading once they get a hold of the wonderful Astak 5″ EZ Reader.
